Surrogacy

by Rob Horner

  So, it didn’t just stop Jeff.

  The alpha turned back toward my friends.

  “Hit it again,” I said, forcing the words out.

  The thing raised a hand to guard its face, the long sleeves completely covering its skin. Some of the fire and lightning must have gotten through, because it turned away again, roaring its displeasure.

  I raised a fist and punched at the barrier. The light flashed and I staggered back, barely saving myself from another fall. Caitlin rushed forward, dodging around the things legs while it staggered. She raised a hand as she came in, prepared to meet the wall. When she reached it, she wasted no time trying to pummel her way through. Each fist came down without a sound, no loud bongs like she was striking a bell, not even a dull thud.

  “Caitlin, listen,” I said. “You guys need to get out of here.”

  “We can’t just leave you,” she replied.

  “As far as I can tell, I’m stuck here. But I think I can destroy the resonator inside.”

  “That might not get rid of the alpha out here.” Another barrage of gunfire poured in on the monstrous form, all aimed at its face. A grenade arced through the air, setting off an explosion at its feet that did nothing, although the blast of air pushed Caitlin against the barrier for a second.

  “If it disappears, or if the barrier goes, come back in after me,” I said. “Better yet, try to keep it distracted long enough for me to smash this thing.”

  “I don’t like this, Johnny,” she said.

  “Me either. But we gotta try, and some of you have to go rescue the others, Tiffany and Ricardo, the twins, everyone.”

  Jeff appeared next to Caitlin. “Iz wants to pull it into the carnival. He says the barrier might be tied to the alpha, and if one moves, so will the other.”

  Before Caitlin could reply, I said, “Sounds good. Not like I can go anywhere.”

  She looked like she wanted to say something else but didn’t. Instead she held out a hand to Jeff, who took it and vanished in a flash of light.

  Michael and James were raising and lowering their arms, trying to snake a tongue of something over or under the alpha’s blocking hand.

  If I waited any longer, I wouldn’t have the strength or the nerve to do what needed to be done.

  Iz shouted orders, and the others began to back away from the alpha, daring him to follow them.

  Taking that as my cue, I turned and stumbled toward the open door of the trailer.

  Chapter 32

  The surprise ending

  The trailer was just a box on the inside, a humid space no more than twelve feet by eight. A worn carpet, as thin as a fast food napkin, covered the floor. It was dark, but I couldn’t tell if that was by design or if it had been stained by a decade of dirty feet and the blood of a half-dozen shredded carnival workers. The windows to each side of the door were covered with the thick curtains through which I’d peered back in Virginia Beach, when my curiosity brought me to witness the emergence of these horrors into my world.

  Back then I thought they were demons. The unfortunate carnies probably thought something similar. Nothing else I’d seen, and nothing Fish had explained, gave a reason for such weird pomp and circumstance. The Dra’Gal were aliens and capable of pouring out through the resonator whenever the signal was given, so why the show, unless it was to serve some other purpose. Maybe the human bodies were needed immediately for those handmaid things, Dra’Gal already here in physical form who needed a host to survive.

  Fish talked about dozens of similar rituals, maybe hundreds, occurring simultaneously around the world. Did that mean there were already hundreds, if not thousands, of betas already on our world? What did they do while waiting for the time to activate a resonator?

  To the left of the entrance was a hallway best thought of as a nod to separation. No more than two or three feet long and hugging the left wall, there was a single narrow door on the right that gave onto a cramped lavatory, and another door at the end which might be a bedroom.

  The only furnishing in the main space was a table in the far-right corner. And on that table…

  “I knew you’d come,” a man’s voice said. My head whipped to the left, where the door to the last chamber now stood open and a tall form, two or three inches taller than me, walked slowly toward me. He was dressed in a poet shirt and tuxedo pants, perfectly hemmed to land and pool on the tops of his jet-black dress shoes. His face was plain and unremarkable, a man who wouldn’t stand out on a beach or at the opera, with brown eyes that gave away nothing and a mouth set in a placid line that could turn up or down without any warning. “I’m so glad you accepted my invitation.”

  I looked back at the door to the trailer, my mind a chaotic whirlwind of thoughts and questions. The sounds of battle continued, though they sounded far away. Wasn’t he still out there? How could he be in two places at once? Was he a twin? Could I get back outside before he got to me? If he was in here and not out there, did that mean my friends were safe?

  “I am here and there,” he said. “Any who harbor the spark of the Dramagaralalich can be a host for me at any time. It is why there is always one such near our source. I brought you through the barrier, and I activated this host to greet you.”

  My fists clenched as he approached. I hadn’t moved much beyond the door, so there was room for him to walk around me. He seemed intent to do so. Should I let him? Could I end this by banishing him? Was it even possible to banish him?

  “Don’t think this makes your compatriots safe, Mr. Wilson. Even now, I chase them through the wide alleys of the carnival.”

  The ratcheting sound of an automatic rifle sounded faintly, like a cap gun.

  “So, you’re everywhere at once?” I asked, surprised that my voice sounded steady.

  “I can be, yes. Rather like your god, as it were.”

  As he crossed in front of me, I struck.

  My hand rocketed forward, intent upon slapping the nondescript off his face and driving the smug alien inside of him back to wherever the damned things went when I banished them.

  He…leaned away from my attack, his body shifting at the waist in a manner that made my head hurt to think about, shoulders contorting so fast that a normal human would be hunched over for a week after. My hand swished through open air, the momentum pulling me forward a half step.

  Then he was beyond me, standing in front of the plain table with the black rock on top of it.

  Only his sudden appearance a moment before had kept me from focusing on the resonator. Now, with him standing beside it, I couldn’t look away.

  “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked. He had a smooth voice, one of those velvet tones that made you believe you were the most important person in the world while he talked to you. “Do you know the only reason you can do what you do is because you were here when it started?”

  Did he mean my power?

  “I saw you, standing outside my window, your greedy human eyes already deciding that what you’d witnessed was bad. You didn’t greet the miraculous with wonder, but with fear.”

  “Those men—” I started.

  “—were willing participants. They were told their sacrifice would usher in a new era for this world. And it has. You saw possession, or perhaps invasion. This is salvation for my people.”

  “You don’t believe me?” he asked. One hand rested on the resonator, caressing the liquid-dark surface as though it were a beloved pet. “My people lost their home world and have been traveling through space, desperately seeking a new place where we can survive. Here, we can have that. Is it so bad to want to provide a home for my kind?”

  “Then why not just come as yourselves?” I asked. There was a lulling sensation to his speech, a subtle form of hypnosis. But his version of history left out the part where they were responsible for the destruction of their world.

  “We cannot survive long on any planet in our own forms, so wasted are they by their long and arduous journey. As we speak, most of my people live in a f
orm of stasis, bodies preserved to provide life to the consciousness. They have the strength for one last journey, and that journey has begun. They’ll be here within weeks of your time. Once they establish in a host, they will live again.”

  “But you, because you were there, outside that window when the lights came down, you have the unique ability to expel our consciousness from a host. Our numbers dwindle with every loss. Those minds cannot return to their own forms. The crossing is a one-way trip for them.”

  This news electrified me and gave me hope. My power didn’t just cure those possessed; it killed the Dra’Gal spirit inside.

  “You were almost ours then. When you become one with us, your power will be ours.”

  In my mind I made the connection. Equals and opposites, one of the fundamental laws of physics. The twins made a sphere of protection that helped whomever they were allied with and hurt those who were different. Jeff couldn’t teleport people if they were Dra’Gal. But if he were possessed, the opposite would probably be true. Likewise, the healers, Ricardo and Angelica. Ricky hadn’t been able to heal the soldier in Mandatum’s kitchen until I Purged him. Would their abilities no longer work on regular humans or the Chosen if they were possessed?

  “What good will it do?” I asked. “I’m not possessed. None of the people who fight with me are, either.”

  “It would be enough just to have your gift off the battlefield, don’t you think? We could still be killed, of course, though we are a hardier race than yours once manifested. But your ability to annihilate hundreds of my kind in a heartbeat makes you a special threat.”

  “Then why haven’t you just killed me?” I shouted, stepping forward. He might be fast, but he had positioned himself in a corner, boxed in between the table and the wall that made up the front of the trailer.

  “We wanted to, at first. The minute your special gift manifested, all our will was bent on finding you and destroying you. But a higher consciousness suggested you might be useful. What if your power could be turned to our cause? It is worth pursuing, this idea that you might be the cure for the abilities gifted to so many by those techno-creatures you call the Quins.”

  Equal and opposites.

  It made sense.

  Possessed by a Dra’Gal, my ability to purge might work against the Chosen, eliminating their gifts.

  Suddenly, striking out at this man with his honeyed voice and non-threatening appeal seemed childish and stupid. I needed to escape, not get closer to him.

  Spinning, I darted for the door, only to find my way blocked by a manifested Dra’Gal. Not slowing, I launched a straight punch at the thing’s horned face. Light flashed and it vanished. My momentum carried me through the doorway. Four more Dra’Gal waited outside, scaly arms swinging the moment my foot hit the concrete. Raising my arms desperately, I blocked three of the attacks, with one of my blocks hitting bare skin, dispelling the creature. But the fourth connected with a staggering overhand blow, fist crashing down high on the left side of my chest.

  For the second time in just a few minutes, my breath was blown out of me as my collar bone shattered. My left arm went from fisted and swinging to a lump of weight too painful to move. The force of the blow drove me down and back, my butt hitting the floor inside the trailer.

  Growling through the pain, I rolled to my right, determined to get my feet under me and up out of this helpless position. As soon as I rolled, I kicked back, one of my shoes connected on something. Light flashed again, strobing into the trailer, and I managed to scoot forward.

  From this position, I could see the places in the carpet where blood had soaked through. The smell of copper and old dirt stung my nose, rising like a cloud wherever my hand scrabbled or my feet pushed. The pain in the left side of my chest continued to rise, like my brain and body were negotiating on the actual level of pain and each heartbeat drove the cost a little higher. There was a pressure there that resisted any attempt to draw a deep breath, and the analytical part of my mind coldly informed me that the downward blow might have driven a shard of bone into my lung. Panic threatened, driven in part by the inability to take a complete breath but mostly by an awareness of my acute danger.

  I lurched forward again, belly-crawling with one arm, and a foot landed on my back, holding me down. A pair of black shoes walked up and stopped, close enough that my reflection was visible, blurred by tears of pain. The shoes shone, a black harboring a dark redness deep within their luster.

  “Hold him up,” the man said, and the foot came off my back, replaced by clawed and scabrous hands, rough as dry bark, which hooked under my arms, dragging my hands behind me even as my body was twisted and pulled upright. My teeth clenched as the pain in my left shoulder soared to new heights and a wave of dizziness and nausea swept through me. Remembering what came next, I squeezed my eyes shut.

  I wouldn’t look at the statue in the man’s hands.

  I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of seeing my fear.

  “Now now, let’s not be childish about this,” he said.

  His voice was right in front of me.

  Desperately, I sought to block out his words, tried to focus beyond the pain in my arm. I called to my power, willing it to build. Though I couldn’t see them, my hands grew warm, and I knew the power building in them must be making them glow.

  “That won’t do at all,” the man said, and the demon on my left gave a wrenching twist to my shoulder. Bone grated in my collar and the pain would have driven me to my knees if the Dra’Gal weren’t holding me up. Whatever power I’d managed to build fled as my concentration was shattered.

  “Save yourself the trouble, Johnny. I’m not going to kill you, and I can’t allow you to destroy any more of my kind.”

  Everything I’d worked toward, all the fighting, and it came down to this. I hadn’t even had a chance to try to destroy the resonator. Maybe I was a fool even to think I could.

  “Open your eyes.”

  Mutely, I shook my head. They couldn’t make me open my eyes. They couldn’t.

  A pair of strong hands, long fingered and horny as the hands holding my arms, closed around my neck, sharp claws digging into the skin of my throat.

  The panicky feeling of not being able to draw a complete breath paled in comparison to being unable to breathe at all. The pain in my shoulder receded to a mild inconvenience as I struggled against the hands holding me. Rough sounds like a rock polisher tumbling clods of dirt to bits of gleaming amethyst slid over me, and it took my brain long seconds to identify it as the sound of Dra’Gal laughter. Stars burst behind my eyelids, a private firework show lighting up the darkness as my chest heaved and my legs drove first one way, then the other.

  Maybe they were going to let me die after all.

  Then the pressure on my neck relented and as I drew in a surprised breath my eyes opened reflexively.

  The statue was there, waiting for me.

  I am twelve feet tall, towering head and shoulders above the chain link fence that surrounds the fairground. Fire and lightning, scintillating shards of formed whiteness, and bullets from more mundane weapons slam in at me, holding me at bay long enough for two large vehicles, vans of some kind, to sling gravel and leave inky black streaks as they tear away down a narrow street.

  Become.

  A pressure like the tip of a pen pressed against my eyes, harder, harder, until something slid into them, no less painful than if the orbs had been pierced and pulled whole from the sockets.

  I stride through the halls of Mandatum, overhead lights dark and the path lit only by flashing red emergency beacons. Ahead of me is the room my host thinks of as the Distilling Room. Somewhere in there, I know, the last two holdouts wait. My clawed hand fumbles with the thin plastic card these humans use to actuate their doors, but I manage to hold it in the proper place. Locating my targets takes only a second with my enhanced night-vision; they are huddled together, old man and older woman, and as I approach, they activate something that sends out dazzling spears of light.
The structure rumbles around me as thick chunks of rock begin to fall. For the first time in my long existence, I fear for my life and turn to leave, only to have a part of the ceiling fall upon me.

  You cannot resist.

  Something surged through the connection, following the pathway into my eyes like a train following the tracks to the station.

  Deep inside a grand cathedral, I raise my arms to beseech the vacuous space in what the gathered men and women take as a grand gesture of piety. My host knows the words to say to drive the fools below me into an ingrained pattern of call and response. My fellow Dra’Gal move among them, small statuettes bearing the Potential hidden in the folds of their sleeves. As my arms come down, they strike. Vatican City is mine.

  Retreat and hide.

  The incessant pressure pushed into my mind, bringing pain to every nerve center. Synapses alight, my consciousness retreated.

  I sit in my office, wooden desk before me and plush carpets beneath my feet, as wave after wave of people come before me. Some bear papers for me to sign, and others hold those things called microphones, hoping I’ll answer a question or make some comment they can cut, splice, and repeat over and over on their television news. They are not aware that I already own the news, just like I own this town and this building. I do like this office and how it is decorated. Perhaps I will keep the oval shape when I no longer need to pretend to run the country, though the flags will have to be replaced. Red, white, and blue are not the colors of the Dramagaralalich.

  Mine.

  The world outside faded as more and more streams of thought, images, and sensations barreled in. There was no filter, no time-delay—everything happened simultaneously and was processed as one mind, one consciousness.

  I run through a verdant forest, more of me to either side. Ahead lies a force of the enemy, gifted humans and their alien benefactors alike. They are the last holdouts in this hot and wet region. Once they are defeated, the continent called South America will be ours.